How cool are scientists?
Not very, according to a recent poll conducted by the educational organization OCR. Of roughly a thousand British school children aged 13-16 polled, only 7% thought that scientists were ‘cool or fun’.
Their awareness of modern scientists was pretty poor, too. While the names of Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton were known to less than half of those questioned, not a single contemporary (live) scientist could be pulled from the hat. (The survey conductors wisely decided that ‘Chemical Ali’ didn’t count.) The same survey showed that about half of the students though science was ‘boring’.
You can read more about this poll here.